Online Niche Marketing (Part 1 of a 3 part post)

The reason why I didn’t use the word “needle” is because a needle in a haystack just seems to daunting a task.  Online niche marketing, particularly, the critical step that involves finding a niche market, just shouldn’t be that difficult.

Let me break down a few things first:

A niche market is; A group of people who are actively searching (online) for solution to a problem, while not finding too many relevant results.  In other words; A healthy demand in relation to supply.  A thing to remember, the supply is your competition, and competition isn’t a bad thing as long as there isn’t too much (more on this later).

The golden nugget is; a group of keywords or a potential market actively searching online for a solution to a problem.

So, how do you find that nugget?

Online niche marketing is somewhat of a simple concept. In my opinion it is one of the soundest business approaches out there. In order to do online niche marketing, it’s essential that you start on a completely blank slate. No business/product idea.  Choosing product first is thinking backwards when it comes to niche marketing.  Remember; think market first NOT product first. In the beginning, just bring your interests, passions and life experiences to the plate.  Afterwards, you write your business plan.

Essentially, you want to be able to provide a product or service that will solve your potential market’s problem.  Not all keyword traffic can be sold something, however, one thing we’ve all learned; a website that gets enough traffic will eventually make money somehow.

The whole idea here is to find a market that has a healthy demand (monthly search volume) with very few competitors (Pay-per click and SEO competitors) I know this sounds impossible, but as the Internet grows and since new markets are always emerging this will never be impossible.

Keyword research is by far the most important step in this business model.  A few years back when I was hunting for niche markets everyday, I realized how important market research is.  Nothing sucks more than spending time and money on writing content, building a website and product development when you’ve poorly chosen your market and overall online business path.

Stay tuned for Part Two where I get into detail on online market research based on your passions and competition analysis…